Yolande Beekmann ( German: Yolande Beekmann ), nee Yolande Elsa Maria Unternahrer ( German: Yolande Elsa Maria Unternahrer ; November 7, 1911 , Paris - September 13, 1944 , Dachau concentration camp ) - British intelligence agent of Swiss origin.
| Yolande Beekman | |
|---|---|
| him. and English. Yolande beekman | |
 Commemorative plaque in Dachau | |
| Nickname | Mariette |
| Date of Birth | November 7, 1911 |
| Place of Birth | Paris , France |
| Date of death | September 13, 1944 (32 years old) |
| Place of death | Dachau concentration camp , Third Reich |
| Affiliation |  UK /  France |
| Type of army | intelligence service: Special Operations Office aviation: Female auxiliary air force |
| Years of service | 1943-1944 |
| Part | intelligence network "Musician" ( born Musician ) |
| Battles / wars | The Second World War |
| Awards and prizes |  |
Biography
Born in a Swiss family in Paris. In childhood, she moved to London. Fluent in English, German and French. After the outbreak of World War II, she entered the service of a radio operator in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force, thanks to her language skills she was recruited to the Office of Special Operations for work in France on February 15, 1943 . Her companions were Nur Inayat Khan and Yvonne Kormo .
In 1943, she married Dutch Army Sergeant Jap Beekman, but after the wedding she was forced to leave her husband and fly to France. The 161st Royal Air Force special squadron landed from a Lysander aircraft on the night of September 17-18, 1943 . In France, she worked with Gustav Biele, a Canadian radio operator in Saint-Quentin (Department of En), under the pseudonym Mariette. She sent radiograms to London, helping the Allies to prepare for the landing in Normandy. January 13, 1944 in the cafe Moulin-Bruhl was arrested by the Gestapo along with Gustav Biele, both were thrown into prison, where they were tortured. Biele was later executed.
Yolande was transferred to Fresnes prison, where she was beaten daily. In May 1944, she was sent to Karlsruhe, where she met nurse Hedwig Müller. She wrote after the war that Beekman was physically unable to walk and almost never got on her feet. The companions for Yolanda in misfortune were Elise Joche (Jehovah's Witness), Ani Hagen (a black market speculator) and Clara Frank (thrown into prison for slaughtering a cow without permission from the German authorities). Beekman left every now and then with her blood messages on the wall or toilet paper.
On September 11, 1944, she was sent to the Dachau concentration camp with other agents: Madeleine Damerman, Nur Inayat Khan and Elian Pluman. Two days later, everyone was shot: each of the captives was shot in the back of the head. The corpses of the dead were burned.
Posthumously, Yolanda Beekman was awarded the Military Cross. Her memory is immortalized at the Rannimid monument in the British county of Surrey, as well as at the memorial in the French city of Valencay (Department of Indre ) and the memorial plaque in Dachau.
Literature
- We Landed by Moonlight (2000), Verity, Hugh.
- MRD Foot: SOE. The Special Operations Executive 1940-1946, London 1984
- David Stafford: Secret Agent. The True Story of the Special Operations Executive. BBC Worldwide 2000, ISBN 0-563-53734-5
- Monika Siedentopf: Absprung über Feindesland. Agentinnen im Zweiten Weltkrieg. dtv 2006 ISBN 3-423-24582-4
- Marcus Binney: The Women who lived for Danger: The Agents of the Special Operations Executive, 2003
- Sarah Helm: A Life in Secrets: Vera Atkins and the lost Agents of SOE, 2006